


Growing

by Bhelryss



Series: fegenweek2018 [2]
Category: Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones
Genre: Ewan is there, Gen, as is the elder of caer pelyn, fegenweek, prompt: growth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-10
Updated: 2018-01-10
Packaged: 2019-03-02 23:52:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,507
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13329066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bhelryss/pseuds/Bhelryss
Summary: FEGenweek, Day 3: GrowthMyrrh sits on a chair that is way too big, with her feet hanging off the edge of the seat and her wings close to her back. Saleh sits in a chair that is sized just right, with his face close to the paper on his desk and the candle burning dangerously low. She breathes, he breathes. She grows up, and he grows older.





	Growing

Myrrh sits on a chair that is way too big, with her feet hanging off the edge of the seat and her wings close to her back. Saleh sits in a chair that is sized just right, with his face close to the paper on his desk and the candle burning dangerously low. The elder is sleeping, somewhere in the house, as it is very, very late, and Myrrh kind of wishes Saleh were sleeping right now too.

But, unsure of herself, she says nothing.

However, in her shifting, the chair creaks loud enough to startle him. Saleh’s head jerks up, and his eyes blink slowly, and he looks at her. “Lady Myrrh?” He says, frowning, like he doesn’t quite understand why she’s still awake at this hour. Exhaustion fuzzes the words as he says them, and Myrrh smiles shyly from her perch. He looks to his candle, and then turns a sheepish look back to her.

“You must be tired, Great Dragon.” he says, standing and wincing as he stretches out his back. She shrugs and hops off her chair, legs a little wiggly from sitting still for so long, but otherwise unaffected by her vigil through youthful and inhuman tolerances. Saleh’s eyes are half-lidded with exhaustion, and that is probably the only reason he reaches out a hand for her to take. “Come along then, Lady Myrrh.”

She grabs onto it and follows gladly, some twelve hundred years years old and still a child. 

Maybe it was his already greyish hair, but Myrrh thinks that Saleh has aged peculiarly fast for a human. He drinks tea with his elder, and eats at the same times. He doesn’t sleep as much as she does, this village grandmother, but Myrrh thinks that should be  _ impossible _ . Elder Grandmother sleeps  _ so _ much. But even ignoring that dissimilarity, Saleh, like his elder, knows so much?! And helps around the village, even if he and Elder Grandmother do it in different ways.

Myrrh follows around behind him like a winged, tiny shadow, and watches him closely to make sure he’s not aging  _ too _ fast. She’ll outlive him, but she still doesn’t want to outlive him too fast!! (Myrrh doesn’t really want to outlive him at all, but she’s not thinking about it.)

Saleh flips through the pages of his books, stays up too late, and does many things. Takes care of Elder Grandmother and the village and her, and meditates. He has a big word for it, but she’s not super interested in the meditation itself, so she always forgets what he calls is. And, at the beginning of each year, Saleh and Elder Grandmother (Saleh calls her Grandmother Dara, sometimes) coax her into standing up against a wall with marks on it, and she gets the top of her head and wingtips measured while Elder Grandmother makes little jokes.

At the end of the fourth year and beginning of the fifth, they measure her four times, and then Saleh proudly proclaims that she’s grown. “Have I really?” She asks with surprise, turning and staring at the tiniest of gaps between the lines. “....I really have!” Myrrh whispers, turning a large smile at the two adults.

Another five years. Of Saleh doing what he must and Myrrh shadowing, growing little by little, still a child. She likes Caer Pelyn though. She loves it. There’s more sun than in the shadowy depths of Darkling woods. There’s sun and people, and she’s never alone. 

Myrrh sits on a chair that is still too large for her, her toes hanging over the edge of the seat and her wings awkwardly positioned against the backing, and watches Saleh read. It is too late in the evening for her to be awake, and she’s flagging. She rests her head on her hand, elbow on the chair’s armrest, and tries her hardest to keep her eyes open. Saleh’s head seems greyer, lately, and she’s suddenly afraid he might disappear. So she sits, and she blinks, and the room blurs when her eyes get dangerously close to closed.

She stirs a little when Saleh picks her up, groans a little as he tries to balance her on his hip. “Lady Myrrh is getting a little big for this,” he says to himself, as though he’s ever done it before. As though it were even possible for her to have grown enough for it to make a difference. She rests her head on his collarbone, as he carries her to her bed.

“What...time is it?” Myrrh whispers, as Saleh pulls covers up to her chin. 

“Time to go back to sleep, Lady Myrrh,” Saleh whispers back, rubbing his thumb over her cheek. She makes a tired, sleepy noise of protest, but does so anyway. She wakes up, still very tired, to find Saleh asleep at his desk. (When he wakes up, she’s curled up in her too-big chair, mouth slightly open, deeply asleep. He wonders for a moment if he dreamed carrying her to bed, but her sheets aren’t precisely tucked into place, so he supposes she just woke up and came back to sit with him.)

Another five years, the notches on the wall have climbed up another tiny space. Myrrh is quite proud of herself, and a few villagers stop her in the streets to wish her a happy new year. They address her only as Great Dragon, unlike Saleh and Elder Grandmother, but she still beams brightly at the interactions all the same. The younger children invite her to play games, and Myrrh laughs big and bright when her kick at a red ball misses, and she ends up falling onto her butt. 

Saleh really is looking more wrinkly, now. He can’t hide it with excuses of being tired. Elder Grandmother sleeps even more than before, and Myrrh can see that it makes Saleh sad. It makes her sad too, because she doesn’t like to think about it, but it means that Elder Grandmother is going to be leaving them soon. 

Ewan comes to the village every so often, now. He’s a lot taller than she remembers him being, but fifteen years will do that to a human, she supposes. She sits in her too-big chair and watches him talk excitedly to Saleh, though he’s often gone again before she gets too used to him. (Myrrh’s glad he doesn’t try to talk to Elder Grandmother, though. Elder Grandmother has been calling her by another name, one she doesn’t recognize, though Saleh seems to. He doesn’t explain, but it seems to make him very sad.)

When she sits with Saleh, as he does his reading (now he has to wear glasses to read, to make the words big enough), Myrrh wonders if Saleh knows how to take care of himself after Elder Grandmother goes to the stars. Father, Morva, had gone to the stars before the war even ended, and she’d hardly known how to do it. She’d needed Saleh’s, and then Ephraim’s company, and the warm feeling of belonging that Elder Grandmother had given her, before she really stopped being too sad.

(Elder Grandmother goes to the stars, and Saleh  _ is _ sad. Myrrh keeps close to him again, though it’s different from when she first came to Caer Pelyn. He never says anything, but she wakes up a couple times in Saleh’s arms, as he carries her from her too-big chair to her own bed, and she thinks she sees him meditating more.)

Ewan comes to their home with a little girl in tow, two years after Elder Grandmother goes to the stars. The people of the village have started to call Saleh “Grandfather,” now, and she hates it. The girl with Ewan smiles shyly at her, while Ewan talks to Saleh. “Do you study magic with ElderGrandfatherSaleh too?” She asks, leaning up on the tips of her toes to look out the high window. This child is small, smaller even than she thought Ewan had been.

“....No..” Myrrh answers, feeling out of place without Saleh. 

“TeacherEwan says he wants me to live with ElderGrandfatherSaleh for a while, to learn as he did.” The girl elaborates. “He’s really my uncle, but he hates it when I call him UncleTeacherEwan.” The titles she gives Saleh and Ewan are made as though one word, one breath. “My name’s Janne, what’s yours?” And Janne smiles so wide Myrrh tries to smile back.

“I’m..Myrrh.” 

“That’s a pretty name, Myrrh! So, what do you do here, with ElderGrandfatherSaleh?” 

Myrrh looks over to Saleh, who is still just out of sight. She shrugs, and smiles. She thinks of her warm memories of Elder Grandmother, of how many times Saleh has carried her to bed. She doesn’t have the words for it, but she hasn’t hid her wings out of shyness, or fear, in a long time. She hasn’t been alone. Myrrh thinks she won’t ever feel alone again.

It’s as though, as she grew up those tiny little bits, she’s grown into this family. 

She shrugs again. “I’m growing up.”


End file.
